Oct. 9, 2013

Jim Bonsall, left, Detroit's chief financial officer

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Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Cheryl Johnson

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Detroit officials announced late Wednesday they will investigate claims that one of emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s top appointees made racially insensitive statements on the job, demeaned black women and at one point asked, apparently in jest, if he could “shoot someone in a hoodie” during Angels’ Night.

Cheryl Johnson, who is black, was demoted from finance director to city treasurer on Oct. 3. She said in a letter addressed to Mayor Dave Bing, Orr and other top city officials that Jim Bonsall, the city’s chief financial officer whom Orr appointed in July, routinely demeans and berates employees openly during meetings — but in a manner that “is more pronounced with minority women,” according to the letter obtained Wednesday by the Free Press.

Reached outside his office at City Hall on Wednesday afternoon, Bonsall, who is white, said he was unaware of the letter or the allegations and declined to comment. He said he would confer with Orr’s office and then consider responding. He did not respond by Wednesday night.

Orr spokesman Bill Nowling said Orr met with Bonsall on Wednesday afternoon and told him the city would investigate the accusations.

“The emergency manager takes these allegations very seriously — they’re troubling, if true,” Nowling said. “But we have to let the process work. There will be an investigation, and the results will be made public to the extent we’re allowed to by law.”

Johnson accuses Bonsall of creating a hostile work environment and retaliating against her after she complained, by having her demoted. In the letter, she said the comment on shooting someone in a hoodie — an apparent reference to the fatal shooting of unarmed Florida teen Trayvon Martin — came as city officials were explaining to him that Detroit administrators customarily participate in Angels’ Night neighborhood patrols leading up to Halloween to help prevent arsons.

Johnson couldn’t be reached for comment. Orr announced last week that she was being appointed city treasurer and losing the position of finance director, a move Johnson called a demotion in her letter.

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“I have had the responsibilities of both the finance director and the treasurer for the past two years,” Johnson’s letter said. “Jim has brought in a friend of his, who happens to be a white male, to do one of the roles I was responsible for and pay him more than I was being compensated. He stated in a meeting with me that no one in their right mind would do this for less than $150 an hour. I guess he didn’t realize that all city employees work for much less than that. This appears to be akin to the family and friends plan that existed under the Kilpatrick administration.”

The meeting at which the hoodie comment took place — the exact date wasn’t immediately clear — was in the 11th-floor City Hall office of Gary Brown, the former city councilman whom Orr hired to lead restructuring efforts. Brown confirmed Wednesday that he and three other officials were discussing city business when Bonsall made the remark that Brown called off-color.

“I understood why Cheryl would have been offended,” Brown said, noting that Johnson has a teenage son. “However, to me it didn’t rise to the level of harassment, and I had a conversation with Jim and pointed out the nature of the insensitivity in regard to the remark.”

Brown declined further discussion of the meeting or his conversation with Bonsall until the investigation, likely conducted by the city’s human resources department, is completed.

Bing’s office issued a statement Wednesday afternoon: “Certainly these allegations are disturbing. However, a complete investigation needs to take place before any further action is taken.”

The letter marks another sign of internal strife under Orr’s leadership at city hall. Bing had quietly chafed at losing authority and an exodus of his top aides under Orr, feelings he confirmed publicly after the Free Press reported last month on the divide between he and Orr.

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City employees appear to be conflicted, too, as evidenced by a memo Orr issued Sept. 19 to all city employees directing them to cooperate with outside contractors brought in to restructure city government. The memo said there have been “reported instances of certain employees refusing to work with certain personal contractors.”

The memo says Orr is well within the law in hiring and appointing contractors and that state and city law doesn’t prevent city employees from having to answer to contractors he appoints.

Bonsall, 60, acknowledged in an interview with the Free Press in late July after two days on the job that he made his tough style known by calling out people for having side meetings at staff meetings.

“I’m going to start by holding people accountable for the things they told me they were going to do,” he said at the time. “When you tell me you are going to do something, and you give me a date, I expect you to meet that date.”

Bonsall replaced previous CFO Jack Martin, who was appointed emergency manager of the Detroit Public Schools. Bonsall’s pay is $225,000 a year.

Bonsall has experience serving multinational public, European and privately owned companies in the U.S., South America, Europe and the Middle East. In the U.S., he served as president and CEO of Peregrine, where he led the automotive supplier through a successful restructuring plan in the late 1990s. He also served as chief restructuring officer at LTV Steel from 2001 to 2002.

Deputy Oakland County Executive Bob Daddow, through whom Bonsall contacted Snyder administration officials to let them know he was interested in working on Detroit’s turnaround, said Bonsall is well-qualified for the job.

“I think his talents are far superior to simply being a CFO,” said Daddow, who’s known Bonsall for 30 years and worked with him at Ernst & Young. “They ought to be pretty happy they’ve got him in that effort.”

Daddow declined to comment directly on the allegations of derogatory comments.

Nowling and Brown said Bonsall has made tremendous progress since he was hired, quickly getting a handle on the city’s precarious cash flow and how to make sure Detroit has enough money on hand to pay its bills as they come due.

Brown said, “98% of vendors are being paid within 30 days. That hasn’t happened in decades.”